@sophiefullerton
Professor on MENA & political theory. Researcher on conflicts & disinformation. Political Scientist via Columbia University. Find my writings in The Washington Post, Formiche, Index on Censorship & elsewhere. Opinions expressed are my own. 📍IST/NYC
It hasn’t even been a week since Israel targeted a Christian-majority neighborhood in Beirut.
Keep this in mind as elements of the MAGA base continue to foment nasty Islamophobic rhetoric to justify the administration’s regime-change miscalculations. (2)
It’s exhausting to hear voices within the MAGA base justify this war as a mission to “protect Christians in the Middle East,” while simultaneously turning a blind eye to Israel’s continued killing of Christians in broad daylight. (1)
At this rate, the “mistakes” are starting to look less accidental and more deliberate (3)
Repeating this many false narratives after they’ve been publicly corrected starts to look less like ignorance and more like a deliberate effort to confuse the information sphere.
Which notably is a well-documented tactic within Russian disinformation ecosystems. (2)
Reminder that Stein does not simply have a history of boosting Russian talking points, but she also dined at the same table as Putin in 2015 in Moscow.
Her continued push of disinformation around this unfolding conflict (even after being corrected) should not be dismissed as a simple error (1)
Outside intervention in the MENA region is not some monolithic black-and-white action. Each case study is complex and deserves the dignity to be examined with a level of seriousness and nuance.
Stop reducing these countries to simplistic talking points. (4)
I say this as someone who believes Obama’s failed red line and the subsequent U.S. policy failures to curtail Assad’s extermination campaigns contributed to even more atrocities in Syria. (3)
The same can be said for Iraq, where regime change created a power vacuum that strengthened the Iranian regime’s regional influence and contributed to the emergence of ISIS, not to mention the mass displacement that unfolded in both countries. (2)
These proclamations are so intellectually lazy.
One can recognize that Gaddafi was a brutal madman without ignoring that Libya has gone through years of instability and lawlessness, including the emergence of migrant slave markets. (1)
Maga influencer and de facto national security adviser Laura Loomer holds outsized sway on Trump
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Laura Loomer: Far-right activist who met Trump before he fired NSC officials
www.bbc.com/news/article...
With Loomer, there is no real political or intellectual understanding of this region beyond that.
So why is she influencing policy discussions about the region and beyond? (3)
Her geopolitical understanding of the region is rooted largely in disdain for the broader Middle East and its people.
It was only recently that Loomer aired frustration that Assad wasn’t allowed to slaughter more Muslims during his time in power. (2)
This is one of Trump’s go-to confidants.
A more pressing question is why is the sitting president taking geopolitical advice from a veteran conspiracist who was banned from Twitter, Uber, PayPal, Lyft, and other platforms for extreme discriminatory rhetoric against Muslims? (1)
In shattered Yarmouk, the Palestinians of Syria mourn their 'paradise' lost to war
www.middleeasteye.net/news/shatter...
To claim that Assad would somehow be more humane toward the current wave of displaced people requires intentionally ignoring how brutally he treated the refugee populations he governed over while in power. (2)
Under Syria’s former dictatorship, the regime leveled Yarmouk refugee camp, once home to the largest Palestinian refugee population in Syria. To this day, Yarmouk remains vastly depopulated as a result of the Assad regime’s scorched-earth campaign. (1)
Lest we forget, Turkey housed roughly 3.1 + million Syrian refugees, while much of the Western world failed to act against the Assad regime who was responsible for the refugee crisis to begin with (all while they themselves were tightening their own asylum policies.) (4)
For the U.S. to even entertain the kind of argument presented in the original think piece about hanging a NATO ally like Turkey out to dry (especially when Turkey has historically borne the humanitarian brunt of regional conflicts) would be a serious mistake. (3)
I have yet to see a single U.S. official say they will house civilians while they continue to carpet-bomb Tehran. I guess the expectation is that Turkey and neighboring countries will once again absorb the refugees? (2)
Reminder of who ends up dealing with this humanitarian cleanup.
Here in Turkey, the country is already beginning to mitigate some of the civilian fallout created by U.S.–Israel regime-change miscalculations, as Iranians slowly start to trickle across the border. (1)
What exactly was the Syrian government doing to deserve such strong condemnation from Graham?
They were freeing more than 100+ child detainees from SDF prisons.
Keep this in mind while he continues with this rhetoric.
“Jihadists” is one of Graham’s go-to buzzwords he deploys to stoke flames of fear while hiding his own superficial understanding of the region
A couple months ago he was threatening “bone-breaking” sanctions on Syria and insinuating they were acting “radical” with their policies in Raqqa.
In all honesty, we really haven’t seen a military miscalculation of this magnitude in the region in decades. Again make it make sense...
Important to note that this piece is being published not even a week after Israel and the U.S. spectacularly miscalculated their regime-change abilities in Iran, destabilizing the entire Gulf region in a matter of hours.
Anyone looking honestly at the realities of contemporary MENA politics cannot claim these arguments are rooted in fact. Do not let ideological warmongers and their passion projects set the terms of this debate while they are the ones actively destabilizing the region.
Make it make sense.
Please keep in mind that while pro-Israeli voices attempt to manufacture consent for war with a NATO ally, one of these countries (Israel) is currently striking Lebanon & Iran, while Türkiye yesterday was busy neutralizing an ISIS attack in Syria in coordination with the new Syrian government. (1)
New blog video! Assessing U.S. Public Opinion on Trump’s War, a conversation in an Iranian restaurant with @sophiefullerton.bsky.social
renanetjes.substack.com/p/assessing-...
Keep in mind Johnson is saying this the very same day U.S. ally Israel bombed a Christian-majority neighborhood in Beirut.
If this is the argument they want to make, then why are they beating the drums of war for a conflict that is also targeting Christian-majority areas?
